Paul Newman @ 100: "Slap Shot"
Sunday, January 26, 2025 at 10:30PM 
From 1969 to 1977, Paul Newman and George Roy Hill collaborated on three projects. The first two are, of course, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, a pair of immortal classics that are near impossible to divorce from one's understanding of Newman as a movie star, his cultural impact, his legacy. With Robert Redford along for the ride, Hill put his stamp on both the Western genre and the heist film, appealing to convention revisited and sometimes vivisected, re-imagined for a New Hollywood. And yet, no matter how impactful those flicks are, I find myself more drawn to the third Newman-Hill joint. This time, they set their sights on the sports movie, devising a hockey comedy as funny as it is surprising – Slap Shot…
While one likes to tackle every film with an open mind, there are times when it's difficult to do so. Personal prejudices and past disappointments temper expectations, matters of taste do even more damage. So, it's with a heavy heart that I confess I didn't come to Slap Shot with the best mindset. Not the first time I watched it a few years ago. You see, I'm not someone especially interested in sports, and Hollywood's penchant for sentimental cliché when exploring that world bores me more often than not. I'd heard good things about Slap Shot, but they tended to be phrased in ways that inspired dread rather than excitement.
I can't count the times I've seen some much-loved piece of 70s or 80s comedy and found myself befuddled over its cult status. Classic SNL isn't for me and neither are such apparent triumphs of old-school anarchic funny business as Animal House or Trading Places. Moreover, the "politically incorrect" individualistic masculinity many viewers nostalgically attribute to these movies is not to my liking. I get the value of pieces like these as cultural artifacts, but, enjoyment-wise, they're nothing special. Watching stuff like Ghostbusters is more of an intellectual exercise than a fun time, strange as it may sound.
That was the context in which Slap Shot was introduced to me, so you can guess the experience I was anticipating. Well, turns out I was dead wrong and George Roy Hill's take on a hockey comedy is a damn near masterstroke. I mean, it's as crude and crass as advertised, full of blood and tough guys, piss and vinegar. But it's also much more adventurous than one may expect, less interested in traditional narrative than in setting up a milieu and going deep into its granularities. The humor is grounded in character and an observational shapelessness that feels closer to Altman than John Landis. And those sentimental clichés? Nonexistent.
Instead, Slap Shot is suffused with a soft melancholy that doesn't invalidate its wild humor so much as it deepens the thing. Set in the American Rust Belt, the movie depicts a community built around a steel mill that's about to close. Unemployment is on the horizon for thousands of workers and various aspects of their quotidian are going to shit, no doubts about it. One of those is the local hockey team, a minor league bunch of cretins who can't win a game to save their lives and are constantly getting into fights. Well, better bash some skulls on the ice than face the hostility they get from the spectators. The Chiefs don't really have fans, rather a loyal legion of haters.
The local economy's impending collapse makes this the team's final season, and that's as much as Slap Shot gets for a structure. We watch those losers limp through match after match. Their hope, at least in the eyes of wizened old player Reggie (Paul Newman), is to make themselves popular again in the eyes of the crowd. Maybe then, instead of being dissolved, the Chiefs can be sold and continue their bruised existence for heaven knows how long. Logically, the boys' plan relies on appealing to the public's bloodthirst, hyping up their roughhousing ways until they're closer to doing wrestling on skates than hockey proper.
A multiplicity of character arcs exists within this structuring impetus, weaving a thick tapestry of colorful humanity that's equal parts slapstick and sorrow, gratuitous violence, and rip-roaring gags. Nancy Dowd, a future Oscar winner for Coming Home, wrote Slap Shot by drawing inspiration from her hockey-playing brother which likely explains how the comedy feels so lived-in, so detailed. You feel it's possible to pick any background character from any given scene and follow them into their own movie, lives extending far beyond what we see. Hell, you could probably make a seven-season-long network comedy just with the personalities presented here.
Dowd doesn't go easy on the profanity or the juvenile machismo of the milieu, yet she gives it some necessary dimension. Even the most cartoonish fellow is a tridimensional person, full of contradictions, ripe for the picking by a cast that's game for every bit of nonsense the script throws its way. The cutting is precise, scalpel-sharp and just as surgical, showing off what a master of cinema Hill had on the editing room. That's none other than Dede Allen, whose credits include Bonnie and Clyde, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, and Reds, among many others. The woman practically invented the shaggy realism of the New Hollywood moviedom.
Everything about Slap Shot is pristine – especially when it seems roughest and most accidental – from Victor J. Kemper's soot and smoke-toned lensing to Tom Bronson's wintery costume designs, all working according to Hill's vision to produce a picture that's just as strong as his past Newman collaborations if not stronger. And speaking of that blue-eyed devil, he's perfect as good ol' Reggie, a player-coach past his prime who refuses to let go or grow up. That stubbornness is both comical and ugly to witness, manifest as an underlying despair that makes even his coolest feats feel pathetic. Because he is pathetic and duplicitous as all hell, willing to do anything to get his way, even speed the dereliction of his top player's marriage.
Newman knows how to negotiate the different facets of this wreck of a man, pulling us into the joke as easily as he slaps us across the face with the human reality of these characters. It's like watching someone play Bugs Bunny in a psychological drama, constantly alternating between buffoonery and some sobering insight. The best part is how generous Newman can be with his castmates, bringing the best in them without fail. I'm especially fascinated by moments that find Reggie alone with women, be it his estranged spouse, a depressed acquaintance who always seems angry at the world, an adversary's bisexual ex-wife, or the team's owner.
I won't ever forget Newman's silent calculations as Reggie hears a lover describe her affairs with women, a little show of gentleness from a most ungentle man who recognizes the vulnerability of his fling. Melinda Dillon is sublime, but her characterization only works because of Newman's reactions. Then there's Lindsay Crouse's supporting turn as someone I can only describe as an open wound. Her moments with Newman feel dangerous, volatile, as if anything could happen. Oh, and Jennifer Warren, always so put together and affectionate, a painful counterpoint to the mess her leading man embodies. And bless Kathryn Walker for turning what could have been a misogynistic punchline into a one-scene sensation that's so much more than a joke. In part, because Newman plays Reggie's feelings as an insular maelstrom, raging inward before an explosion that's naked in its nastiness. There's no sugar-coating, no attempt at making Reggie heroic. He's just another angry man.
A sex symbol, a charmer, a charisma machine with a dark side, a young hunk full of promise and a desire to prove himself turned into an aging legend, a star for a new Hollywood, a generous thespian and director, a storyteller and portraits – Paul Newman was all that and more. In many ways, it's all contained within Slap Shot, a movie that's all the more enjoyable because it's not necessarily about Newman. He's the protagonist, but he's also part of an ensemble, creating a phenomenal characterization in service of a project that never quite feels like a vehicle meant to make him shine. Also, it's funny as fuck. If that's not a testament to the talent of the man whose centennial we're celebrating, I don't know what is.
Paul Newman Centennial Tribute:
Reader Comments (1)
I always enjoy it even though i'm no sports fan
I was surprised he received no major citations for the role not even Globe Comedy and it's one of his most refreshing turns,infact he went unnominated for all that decade.
He had a rocky patch from 95 - 81 but this is abright shining diamond.
I remember mostly those crazy brothers,Newman's confrontation with the rich investor wife,the excellent supporting roles for Crouse and Walker,the abundence of swearing,Newman's clothes and Ontkean's'strip.
It's a good watch alongside Kansas City Bomber from 1972.